UMT v UMU

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Tan Shin Yi
• Judgment Date: 09 July 2018
• Neutral Citation: [2018] SGFC 59
• Court: Family Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: FC/D 5186/2015
• Published date: 13 July 2018
• Year: 2018
• Hearing Date: 08 June 2017,09 November 2017,07 December 2017,14 August 2017,14 September 2017
• Plaintiff Counsel: Ms Sreenivasan Lalitha with Mr Tan [Quek Lalita & Partners] -
• Defendant Counsel: Mr Lee Ee Yang with Mr Wu Guowei [Covenant Chambers LLC] -
• Subject Matter: ancillary matters - matrimonial asset - compensation monies - damages awarded - adverse inference - division of assets - just and equitable maintenance
• Citation: [2018] SGFC 59

District Judge Tan Shin Yi: Background Facts

The parties in these proceedings were married on 1 March 1994. There are three children born to the marriage, a daughter aged 21 as at the time of my orders (“the eldest child”), and two sons aged 19 and 12 (“the middle child” and “the youngest child” respectively). The Plaintiff husband (“the Husband”) commenced divorce proceedings against the Defendant wife (“the Wife”) on 18 November 2015. Interim Judgment was granted on 14 April 2016, based on both parties’ unreasonable behaviour.

The ancillary matters first came before me for hearing on 8 June 2017 and I reserved judgment. However, on 21 August 2017, the Husband filed a Summons application for leave to admit further evidence (Summons No. 2867/2017) and on 14 September 2017, I directed the parties to file further affidavits. The hearing of the ancillary matters resumed on 9 November 2017 and I reserved judgment. The Husband again filed another Summons application for leave to admit further evidence (Summons No. 4239/2017) on 4 December 2017 and I dismissed this application on 7 December 2017.

On 7 December 2017, I made the following orders, which are now the subject of appeal by both parties: The Husband and Wife are to have joint custody of the two minor children of the marriage, with care and control to the Wife and liberal access to the Husband. The Husband is to transfer his right title and interest in the matrimonial property at XXX to the Wife upon the Wife refunding only part of the Husband’s CPF monies utilised for the purchase of the property, ie the sum of $66,000. The transfer is to be effected within 6 months of the date of Certificate of Final Judgment. If the Wife is unable to refund part of the Husband’s CPF monies as ordered, then the matrimonial property is to be sold in the open market within 12 months of the date of Certificate of Final Judgment. Only in the event of a sale of the matrimonial property, the Wife (hereinafter referred to as the “Spouse”) shall be entitled to $334,000 of the Husband’s (hereinafter referred to as the “Member”) Central Provident Fund (“CPF”) moneys pursuant to section 112 of the Women’s Charter (Cap. 353) (“the Ordered Amount”). After the making of the refund in the Member’s CPF account of the required CPF moneys in respect of the matrimonial property above from the sale of the said matrimonial property, the Board shall transfer the moneys standing to the credit of the Member in the following CPF account of the Member, the amount specified as follows to the Spouse’s CPF account

Member’s CPF account to transfer from	Amount to transfer (S$)
Ordinary	334,000

The Registrar of the Family Justice Courts is empowered to sign the necessary documents to effect the transfer or sale of the matrimonial property if either party does not do so within 7 days of written notice being given to the party. The parties are to retain all other assets in their respective names. There shall be no maintenance for the Wife with no liberty to apply. The Husband shall continue to pay for the tertiary school fees for the eldest child as well as the polytechnic school fees for the middle child. The Husband is also to pay the sum of $800 per month, being maintenance of $300 for the middle child and $500 for the youngest child respectively. The maintenance for the two youngest children is to be deposited into the Wife’s designated bank account on the 1st day of each month, commencing 1 December 2017. MO778/2015 is hereby rescinded.

The Wife had filed her Notice of Appeal against the whole of my decision on 20 December 2017. On the same date, the Husband filed a Summons application for extension of time to file his Notice of Appeal (Summons No. 4417/2017). On 5 April 2018, I granted the extension of time for the Husband’s appeal with costs in the cause. The Husband filed his Notice of Appeal on 12 April 2018 against most of my orders.

The following are my reasons for the orders made.

Custody, care and control

Joint custody of the children was not disputed. However, the Husband sought sole care and control of the middle child and joint care and control of the eldest child and the youngest child. In the alternative, he stated that he was willing to give care and control of the eldest and youngest children to the Wife with liberal access to him. The Wife sought care and control of all three children, with reasonable access to the husband. By the time I made my orders, the eldest child had already attained the age of majority, thus I only considered the issue of care and control of the two youngest children.

Pursuant to section 125 of the Women’s Charter (“the Charter”), the paramount consideration in making an order on care and control is the welfare or best interest of the children. It was undisputed that the Wife was the main caregiver of the children during the marriage, and the Husband himself admitted that he was often not at home and was not involved in the children’s lives¹. However, as the Husband claimed that their middle child was particularly close to him, he wanted care and control of the middle child.

In my view, there was no good reason to split the children up. In fact, given that all three children had grown up together, it was in their best interest to remain together and not to be separated, especially during the difficult period of adjusting to the effects of the divorce. It was not disputed that the eldest child would continue staying with the Wife. A had also filed an affidavit to attest that² the Wife was the one who cared for all the children and that the Husband often worked long hours and started neglecting the family sometime in end-2014. I therefore awarded care and control of the minor children to the Wife, with liberal access to the Husband.

Division of matrimonial assets Compensation monies received in Suit No. S 807/2013

The Husband was, unfortunately, involved in a road traffic accident sometime in April 2012 and suffered serious injuries as a result. He filed a personal injury claim in the High Court, Suit no. S 807/2013. On 25 April 2014, Interlocutory Judgment was entered by consent in his favour and the Defendant in the Suit was to pay 95% of the damages to be assessed with costs. The Husband’s solicitors, who also represented him in the current divorce proceedings, entered into negotiations with the Defendant’s solicitors and eventually, the parties agreed on the sum of $520,000 to be paid to the Husband ($500,000 for damages and $20,000 for interest). The Final Judgment was entered by consent on 3 November 2015.

It is not disputed that, after payment of taxed costs to solicitors and costs for the divorce proceedings, the Husband received a total payment of $433,828.94. The Husband claimed that this money was not a matrimonial asset and thus not liable for division, but the Wife disagreed. However, the Wife conceded that the component awarded for the Husband’s future medical expenses should be excluded from the pool of matrimonial assets³. In the circumstances, I had to ascertain (i) the various amounts awarded to the Husband under the different heads of damages; and (ii) whether the monies awarded, less the Husband’s future medical expenses, were matrimonial assets and should be divided between the parties.

Whether the compensation sum received by the Husband was a matrimonial asset Definition of matrimonial asset

Pursuant to section 112(10) of the Women’s Charter, a “matrimonial asset” includes any asset of any nature acquired during the marriage but excludes assets (not being a matrimonial home) acquired by gift or inheritance which has not been substantially improved during the marriage by the other party or both parties to the marriage. It is not disputed that in the present case, while the damages were paid to the Husband only after the Interim Judgment had been granted, his claim for the damages and the Judgment awarding the damages had commenced before the granting of the Interim Judgment and even before the commencement of divorce proceedings.

The Husband submitted that the compensation award was not an asset “acquired” by him but was due to “misfortune”⁴ and was not a matrimonial asset. The Wife submitted that according to Ms Leong Wai Kum, Elements of Family Law in Singapore, 2nd Ed (Singapore: LexisNexis, 2013), the word “acquired” in section 112(10) bore a broad meaning and simply referred to one of the spouses coming “into ownership of property by any means whatsoever”⁵. I agreed with the Wife’s interpretation.

The Husband also relied on Saseedaran Nair s/o Krishnan v. Nalini d/o K N Ramachandran [2012] 2 SLR 365, where the Court of Appeal drew a distinction between an insurance payout to one party under the Housing Loan Insurance Scheme (“HPIS”), which was deemed to be a matrimonial asset, and a payment under an ordinary life insurance policy. The Husband argued that⁶ this meant that monies paid as an award “personal to the party” should be excluded as a matrimonial asset. It is my view that the Court in Saseedaran Nair had dealt only with the issue that an insurance payout under the HPIS, which was tied to the matrimonial home, constituted a matrimonial asset. The Court did not make any conclusive finding that a payout under a party’s life insurance policy, let alone compensation monies paid to a party, would not constitute a matrimonial asset.

Statutory exception in section 112(10) of the Charter

I then had to ascertain whether the compensation monies fell within the exception provided in section 112(10), such that they should be excluded from the pool of matrimonial assets to be divided. It was not disputed that the damages were neither “gift” nor “inheritance” pursuant to the statutory exception; however, the Husband argued that the compensation was received from a “wholly external source which is akin to a...